The House 'Round the Corner Part 25

"Now, don't let your admiration for the excessive wisdom of the court tempt you to interrupt again, because the court has not fully made up its own mind and is marshaling its views aloud in order to hear how they sound. Where were we? Still in Section D, I think. Well, granted that an obtuse policeman or a perplexed doctor refused to admit that Stephen Garth was dead, the letter would clinch the matter. Indeed, from the report of the inquest, we see that it did achieve its purpose. The remaining heads of the argument may be set forth briefly:

_E._--Stephen Garth is buried at Bellerby, and Stephen Ogilvey steps into new life in Paris, wearing a literary cloak already prepared by many years of patient industry, though no one in Elmdale knew that its well-known resident was a famous writer on folk-lore.

_F._--After some months of foreign travel, it was deemed safe to return to England, and Cornwall was chosen as a place of residence.

The connection between rural Cornwall and rural Yorkshire is almost as remote as the influence of Mars on the earth. Both belong to the same system, and there would be trouble if they became detached, but, otherwise, they move in different orbits; they have plenty of interests in common, but no active cohesion. In a word, Stephen Ogilvey ran little risk in Cornwall of being recognized as Stephen Garth.

_G._--Mrs. Ogilvey, a most estimable lady, and quite as unlikely as her scholar-husband to be a.s.sociated with a crime, was a party to all these mysterious proceedings, and the combined object of husband and wife was to keep their daughter in ignorance of the facts for a time, at least, if not forever.

"I don't think I need carry the demonstration any further to-night. You are not to retire to your room and sob yourself into a state of hysteria because your coming to Elmdale has threatened with destruction an edifice of deceit built with such care and skill. I am beginning to recognize now a fatalistic element in the events of the past twenty-four hours that suggests the steady march of a Greek tragedy to its predestined end. But the dramatic art has undergone many changes since the days of Euripides. Let's see if we cannot avail ourselves of modern methods, and keep the tragic _denouement_ in the place where it has been put already, namely, in Bellerby churchyard."

The girl stood up, and gave him her hand.

"I'm almost certain, Bob, that if you and dad had five minutes' talk, there would be an end of the mystery," she said.

"And a commencement of a long friendship, I hope," he said.

Their eyes met, and Meg's steady gaze faltered for the first time. She almost ran out of the room, and Armathwaite sat many minutes in utter stillness, looking through the window at the dark crest of the moor silhouetted against a star-lit sky. Then he refilled his pipe, and picked up the book he had taken haphazard from the well-stored shelves of that curiously const.i.tuted person, Stephen Ogilvey.

It was a solid tome, ent.i.tled: "Scottish Criminal Trials," and lay side by side with "The Golden Bough," which Marguerite had spoken of, and a German work, "Geschichte des Teufels." Turning over the leaves, he found that someone had marked a pa.s.sage with ink. The reference had been noted many years ago, because the marks were faded and brown, but the paragraph thus singled out had an extraordinary vivid bearing on the day's occurrences.

It read:

"A statute of James I., still in force, enacts that all persons invoking an evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding or rewarding any evil spirit, shall be guilty of felony and suffer death."

Instantly there flitted before Armathwaite's vision a picture of the besotted Faulkner offering libations of wine to the black figure scowling from the stained-gla.s.s window. Perhaps the old toper had been lifting his head in a final b.u.mper when he fell backward down the stairs and broke his neck.

Armathwaite shut the book with a bang. When he went out, he found that Betty had forgotten to leave a candle in the hall, and he must either go upstairs in the dark or carry with him the lamp still burning on its bracket.

He glared steadily at the dull outline of the effigy in armor.

"I'm not superst.i.tious," he muttered, "but if I could have my own way with you, my beauty, I'd smash you into little bits!"

Then, to show his contempt for all ghouls and demons, he extinguished the lamp, and felt his way by holding the banisters. It was creepy work.

Once, he was aware of a curious contraction of the skin at the nape of his neck. He turned in a fury, and eyed the window. Now that no light came from the hall, some of its color was restored, and certain blue and orange tints in the border were so perfect in tone that he was moved from resentment to admiration.

"Not for the first time in the history of art, the frame is better than the picture," he thought. "Very well, you imp of darkness, some day, and soon, I hope, we'll dislodge you and keep your setting."

He did not ask himself whom he included in that p.r.o.noun "we." There was no need. The mighty had fallen at last. He loved Marguerite Ogilvey, and would marry her if she would accept him though her parents had committed all the crimes in the calendar, and her ancestors were wizards and necromancers without exception.

CHAPTER XI

PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE

James Walker, the younger, took thought while his cob paced the eight miles between Elmdale and Nuttonby. In the result, he changed his plans if not his intent. Pulling up outside the office of Holloway & Dobb, he signaled a clerk who peered out at him through a dust-laden window. It is a singular fact that more dust gathers on the windows of offices occupied by respectable country solicitors than on the windows of all other professional men collectively.

"Would you mind asking Mr. Dobb to come and see me for a minute on important business?" he said when the clerk came out.

After befitting delay, Mr. Dobb appeared. He was portly and bespectacled, and not inclined to hurry. Moreover, he did not make a practice of holding consultations with clients in the street. It needed a man of county rank to prefer such a request, and Mr. Dobb, Commissioner for Oaths, and leading solicitor in Nuttonby, was very much astonished when he heard that "young Walker, the auctioneer," had invited him to step outside.

"Well, what is it?" he inquired stiffly, standing in the doorway, and clearly resolved not to budge another inch.

"Sorry to trouble you, sir," said Walker humbly, "but I can't leave this pony when so near his stable. He'd take off on his own account."

Dobb, though slightly mollified by an eminently reasonable explanation, did not offer to cross the pavement, so Walker, after glancing up and down the street to make sure that no pa.s.ser-by could overhear, continued in a low tone:

"I've just come from the Grange, Elmdale, and saw Miss Meg Garth there.

She pa.s.sed a remark which seemed to imply that her father is still living, and got very angry when I told her that he was dead and buried two years ago."

Mr. Dobb descended from the doorway quickly enough then. Resting a fat hand on the rail of the dash-board, he looked up into Walker's red face.

The scrutiny was not friendly. He was sure that the junior member of the firm of Walker & Son had been drinking.

"Do you know what you are talking about?" he said, sternly.

Walker leaned down, until his ferret eyes peered closely into those of the angry solicitor.

"That's why I'm here, sir," he said, with the utmost deference of manner. "Of course, I'm aware that you represent the family--at any rate, with regard to the Elmdale property--and when Miss Meg herself said that her father was alive, and flew into a rage when I ventured to correct her, what was I to think? I admit I was knocked all of a heap, and may have put things rather bluntly, but there cannot be the slightest doubt as to what she meant. More than that, her cousin, Mr.

Robert Armathwaite, bore out her statement, and got so mad with me for stickin' to it that Mr. Garth had committed suicide, that we almost came to blows."

Walker was quite sober--the solicitor had no doubt on that score now.

Perhaps vague memories stirred in the shrewd, legal mind, and recalled certain curious discrepancies he had noted in events already pa.s.sing into the limbo of forgetfulness. He, too, looked to right and left, lest some keen-eared citizen should have crept up un.o.bserved.

"Can't you take your trap to the stable and come back here?" he asked, thereby admitting that Walker's breach of decorum was condoned.

"That's really what I had in mind, sir. I was afraid you might have left the office before I was at liberty, as I have a few matters to attend to when I reach our own place, and I didn't want to intrude by callin' at your house."

Dobb was watching him critically, and was evidently becoming more puzzled each moment.

"I need hardly tell you that you are bringing a very serious charge against someone," he said at last.

"No, that I'm not!" cried Walker emphatically. "I'm just telling you the plain facts. It's not my business to bring charges. I thought, in reality, that I was doing someone a good turn by comin' straight to you; but, if you don't agree, Mr. Dobb----"

"No, no, I didn't mean my remark in that sense," explained the solicitor hastily, not without a disagreeable feeling that this perky young auctioneer seemed to know exactly what he was about. "I only wanted you to understand that grave issues may be bound up with an extraordinary story of this nature. Look here! I'm busy now. Will you be free at six o'clock?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, come to my house, and we'll discuss matters fully. You say you saw and spoke to Miss Meg herself?"

"Oh, yes, sir! No mistake. I've known her all my life."

"Very well, then. Don't be later than six. I have some people coming to dinner at seven."

Walker saluted with the switch he carried instead of a whip, clicked his tongue at the cob, and rattled away down the High Street. Dobb looked after him dubiously. He had been friendly with the Garths, and James Walker, junior, was almost the last person in Nuttonby he would have entrusted with any scandal or secret which affected them. However, in another hour, he would endeavor to gauge the true value of Walker's information. It might be a c.o.c.k and bull yarn, in which case it would be a pleasure to sit on Walker heavily. Meanwhile, he would avail himself of the opportunity to go through certain papers in his possession, and come to the forthcoming interview primed with the facts.

Every Thursday evening, at half-past five, the proprietor, editor, and manager of the _Nuttonby Gazette_--a journalistic trinity comprised in one fussy little man named Banks--looked in at Walker and Son's office for the "copy" of the week's advertis.e.m.e.nts, Mr. Banks being then on his way back to the printing-works after tea. Thus, he killed two birds with one stone, since the Walkers not only controlled a good deal of miscellaneous advertising, but, moving about the countryside as they did in the course of their business, often gave him news paragraphs not otherwise available.